Same thing here.
“Hey, this sounds like a good idea - I’m going to interrupt my last half-hour of sleep every seven minutes!”
mmm
Huh. Mr. Neville never told me he had a sister. At least he usually speaks up when I say “what”.
He faces away from me and mumbles, and expects me to understand what he’s saying. He is intelligent enough to get a Ph.D. in astrophysics, but I still haven’t been able to train him not to do this. I have to grab him and tell him to face me.
He can’t stand to wait in line at the grocery store. He has to wander off and look at God knows what instead. Then I worry that he won’t be with me when it’s time to go. I swear, one day I am going to get a leash and a choke chain…
We have one tall shelf in our fridge, that can hold things like bottles of wine or soda, or jugs of milk. It is self-evident that only things that need to be on the tall shelf should go on the tall shelf. Things that would fit on other shelves should go on them, instead. Not to him. I’m always having to move other stuff off the tall shelf when I need to put something there.
I had to mark off the area on the counter where the microwave door needs room to swing with masking tape. Otherwise, the clutter on the counter creeps into that area. I don’t care about clutter qua clutter, but it is unacceptable for me to have to move clutter around to open the microwave. Before I put the tape there, I was a few days from throwing his damn Tupperware in the garbage the next time I found it blocking the microwave door.
He doesn’t get it that I only know what we have in the pantry or fridge if I am staring into the pantry or fridge at this very moment. He’s always asking me, “do we need X?” at the grocery store. How the hell would I know?
We could both stand to lose some weight. One strategy I would like to try is making less food for each meal. There’s research showing that, if you cook more food, you will end up eating more food. Plus, we don’t always get to the leftovers before they go bad. Not having leftovers is, for some reason, unacceptable to him.
He is mostly trained that leaving cabinet doors open is not acceptable, after 13 years of trying. I don’t have very good peripheral vision, because I’m nearsighted and my glasses don’t cover the area to the side, so my brain just ignores what’s there. This results in my banging my head into any cabinet doors that are left open.
I broke him of not washing the undersides of dishes (and then stacking them, ew!). Anything that can go in the dishwasher is not clean unless it does go through the dishwasher, in our house. This means we don’t need to argue about whether you have to wash the bottom of the plate.
Sweet Jesus, Joseph, and Mary Tyler Moore, this is the creepiest post I’ve ever read on the interwebs. Your husband is an alternate universe clone of Mrs. Mustard.
Mumbled drop-off in audio quality at the end of sentences? Even when repeating because I couldn’t hear the end of the sentence on the first go-'round? Check.
Top-shelf fridge incompetence? Check. (see my post # 24)
Leaving cabinet doors open? Check. I’ll walk into the kitchen and see seven open doors (including the fridge sometimes).
Stacking dirty dishes, mucking up the undersides? Double-check. We’ve had too-long conversations about this.
Please don’t tell me he doesn’t seem to be aware that a light switch can also be used to turn a light off as well as on; I won’t be able to handle it.
mmm
We’ve been married a little over 20 years, so yeah, you betcha there are things that both she and I do that drive each other bloody bonkers. Below are 1 for each of us.
She will only respond to me if I am within eye-shot. Example:
From another room: “Ono?”
Me: “Yeah?”
[silence]
A minute later: “Ono?”
Me: “What?”
[crickets]
30 seconds later: “Ono?”
Me: “WHAT!?”
[rage-inducing quietude]
I walk up the stairs, into the bedroom, where she then asks if I can bring her two double-A batteries for the remote, that are downstairs!
Me: [Seethe]
I have an admittedly annoying habit of repeating what she says back to her in the form of a question whenever I am against her proposal. Example:
Her: “I think we should go to New Hope this afternoon.”
Me: “Is that where you think we should go, New Hope?”
Her: “Yes, there are some great antique shops there.”
Me: “Is that what’s there, great antique shops?”
Her, slightly annoyed: “Yes, why don’t you want to go?”
Me: “Is that what you’re asking, why I don’t want to go?”
Her, full-on annoyed: “Oh, forget it.”
No. I think he might have a tapetum lucidum, like the cats do. He can see in the dark a lot better than I can, and he often forgets that some people need lights on to see their way around at night.
My wife of 7 years is incapable on making minor decisions.
For instance, dinner. Daily, I have to pick out whats for dinner, cook it, and then clean it all up. Everything goes smooth, no one complains, and the kids are in bed on time.
If she were to be in charge of dinner, the kids would still be up at 10pm bugging her incessantly that they haven’t eaten yet because she can’t make up her mind whether she should microwave corny dogs or mac & cheese.
This case of minor indecisiveness causes other issues as well. Flat, horizontal spaces are used as storage because she can’t decide on a permanent home in a closet for new things. Can’t decide whether to wash whites or colors first, so her laundry rarely gets completed (she’ll only wash what is necessary for that day only). Will stand in front of the fridge with the door open for 15 minutes because she can’t decide if she wants tea, wine, water, juice, etc.
Oddly enough, major decisions come to her blazingly fast. I usually have to sleep on a difficult thought before I make a major decision. Then, when we discuss the decision the next day, I find that she came to the same decision as I did, but within seconds. She had to wait til the next day for me to figure it out. :smack:
That would annoy me A LOT. If you don’t want to do something, why can’t you just say, “I don’t want to do that today. Can we do X instead?” (I may be projecting a little from my own husband, who tends to get passive aggressive when he doesn’t want to do something, too.)
Are you Mr. Horseshoe? Because I do mumblemumble.
Mine, about him: he conflates criticism with simple requests for information. For example:
Him: I’m going to get X so I can Y.
Me: 
How come X? Aren’t you supposed to Z?
Him: Because X, that’s why. I know what I’m doing, woman!
Me: Well, I just wanted to know why X and not Z so that I can do Y myself next time…
The most recent thing he did to annoy me was convince me that biting insects weren’t a problem in Scotland. He forgot that I am highly attractive to biting insects, much more so than the average person. I’ve got two miserable, itchy bug bites now to go with my jet lag. Why did I listen to him when he said I wouldn’t need to get bug repellent? Why?
It sounds charming, however, if my g/f told me I’m expected to do the “Honda Wave” when I drive her car I think I might be condescending about the tradition as well.
I love my wife dearly, but there are 3 specific things about her that have always drove me bonkers:
-
Her driving. She can’t keep the vehicle in the center of a lane if her life depended on it. She always has to put herself in the center of the lane which inevitably makes the rest of the vehicle way too close to the right side of the lane, often times with the passenger seat directly over the line. I’ve discovered that if she drives a vehicle with a manual transmission, this happens much more frequently than it does when she drives an automatic, but it still happens and I bring it up every time she’s driving and I find myself sitting on the line.
-
She can’t put anything away to save her life. If she cooks dinner, all the pots, pans and other utensils don’t automatically go in the sink or dishwasher. They stay right there on the counter or stove. She constantly leaves her drink out on the table, then forgets about it, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve found her shoes in the middle of the floor in the bathroom, kitchen, dining room, and living room. The reason for this is simple. She gets distracted easily. She loves to sit with her nose in a book and when she does, its like there’s nothing else going on. Then when she gets up to do something, she just forgets that her shoes are left there… or her coffee. The bad thing about it is that our kids have picked up her bad habit and do the same thing.
-
When we are visiting any of our friends or family and she tells me that she’s ready to go, she’s really not. Instead, she picks that time to start very involved conversations with people. She will say, “Honey, I’m ready to go”, and I’ll start gathering our stuff and get the kids in the car. We are now all in the car except for her. What is she doing? She’s going on and on with someone on a totally new conversation about something or other that she could have had while we were still there. There have even been times where we all (including her) were in the car and starting to leave the driveway and she’s starting new conversations as we were pulling out. In fact one time she told me she was ready to go, so I gathered our stuff, loaded the car, grabbed the kids, loaded them into the car, only to find her still chatting away with her mother. So I looked right at her and said, “Honey, I’m leaving now. If you want to go, then lets go.” We’ve been married for 17 years and she still does this.
I’ll stop when they break then.
I know, I know. You’re right. It is a really bad habit. At this point, after so many years, I do it almost without thinking…almost. 
My husband puts these really long pauses into conversation, because he gets distracted or because he didn’t plan out what he was going to say before he started talking. Sometimes the pause mid-sentence will be so long that I’ll prompt him to continue, only to have him say “what? Oh, I don’t remember.” He does this All. The. Time. I’ll be standing there, waiting for him to get on with it and finish his sentence, pausing whatever I’m doing, and he’ll just sit there, mute, until I prompt him to continue.
It’s worse if he’s doing it because he’s trying to use the computer or play on his phone while telling me something. Sometimes I have to say to him “honey, I’m in the middle of something and I’m waiting for you to finish so I can continue. Can you please finish your thought?”
Funny, I didn’t know my buddy Scott had moved to Boston and gotten married. Many people we know think Scott and I should date. This right here is a prime reason why we never will. It drives me right up the friggin’ wall.
Boyfriend is generally goofy and disorganised and rushed in the morning. I am generally not fit for human interaction until at least three hours after I get up, and very anal retentive about my morning routine. If you ever saw us on the way to work in the morning, you would be certain I am a total harpy and we are but moments away from a giant public blow-out-and-break-up.
Amazingly enough, the fact that I’m a total bitch in the mornings doesn’t seem to bother him. I’m not 100% certain he’s entirely awake during these periods.
Oh dear… apparently we are all in some big polygamous/polyandrous marriage that no one warned us of. I’m pretty sure you’re married to Mr. M., as are those whose husbands expect total recall of refrigerator, pantry, and sock drawer contents.
And then there’s the whole “Honey? Honey? Could you come here?” [Fine. Grumble. Stops doing the taxes/applying baby’s diaper/inputting the code to avoid nuclear war/etc.] “Could you bring me a glass of water/tell me what I wrote this check for/scratch my back/find me some socks?” Gggggggrrrrrrrr!
Now if they would just legalize all forms of marriage, we could all travel without having to stay in hotels … Honey, We’re home …
I also am the keeper of anything in the household. It’s aggravating as hell - “Hey, where’s my hat?!” Unfortunately, my son now does it, too.
My husband also makes me watch him play video games. He gets really excited about the aesthetics of particular scenes, so he’ll make me stop whatever I’m doing to marvel at his video games. It’s really aggravating because his video game playing is a large source of our occasional, ahem, disharmony. And I just never really got into playing video games, so it’s kinda like watching paint dry. Funny thing is that I actually do it, mostly because he gets genuinely excited about it.
Well, if everyone plans to travel without hotels, I’ll have more time to stalk the elusive missing socks, but less income…
At our house, it’s that time for the yearly “Should we turn the air conditioner on?” polka.
Like a lot of women, I don’t feel the heat as much as my husband. He gets hotter sooner, and wants to turn on the AC. Rather than just doing so, he’ll ask me “Do you think we should turn the AC on?” If I answer honestly, “No”, because I don’t feel at all hot, he’ll get all pissed off because he’s hot and wants to cool off. If I answer “Sure”, when we get the electric bill, he’ll imply that it’s high because I was the one who wanted the AC on.
No jury in the world would convict me.